Report: Sweeping iOS 7-style changes said to be coming for OS X 10.10

We’re precisely one month away from Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, and the Internet Rumor Machine is already churning out predictions of what we’ll see unveiled in the conference’s keynote. Last year’s keynote had three huge tentpole announcements: iOS 7,OS X 10.9, and the new cylindrical Mac Pro. This year, rumors point to the spotlight shining squarely on OS X.

9to5mac has a lengthy speculative summary of all the things that we might learn from the keynote. According to the site, we’ll be hearing all about OS X 10.10 (yes, that would be pronounced "oh-ess ten ten-dot-ten"), which reportedly carries the internal code name "Syrah" but which might potentially launch as "OS X Yosemite." This would fit with Apple’s new direction of naming operating system releases not after big cats, but after places in California that carry special meaning to the company.

And what, besides a plethora of tens, will the new version of the operating system bring? Signs point to a substantial visual overhaul incorporating iOS7-style design cues like "sharper window corners, more defined icons across the system, and more white space" than Mavericks. The visual look of OS X has undergone a slow evolution over the past 13 years, with the majority of the typography and visual style freezing around OS X Leopard (version 10.5, released in late 2007). Shifting to iOS 7’s razor-thin typeface and high-color, high-contrast interface elements would be the biggest Mac desktop visual change since the initial bump from OS 9 to OS X.

The danger in such a shift is in going too far and hobbling the desktop with interface elements that don't work outside of the mobile context, but Apple executives have repeatedly stated that iOS and OS X will remain separate products with different interface goals and designs. To that end, 9to5mac states that "OS X characteristics like the Finder, multiwindow multitasking, and Mission Control will not disappear in favor of a more iOS-like experience."

Considering that a not-insignificant number of OS X users are Unix and Linux refugees, the assurance that OS X 10.10 shouldn’t cause Macs to regress to an iOS-like state is definitely a good thing. Multiple windows and multitasking are core components of a modern desktop computing experience.

The report also contains some rumors about iOS 8, including that the mobile operating system has had several of its UI designers temporarily assigned to the OS X team in order to get the desktop OS ready to be shown at WWDC. A number of iOS 8 features might consequently get pushed back to iOS 8.1, potentially including an updated Maps app with public transit information. Also possibly in the mix for the WWDC Keynote is an update to the AppleTV (the small black box, not an actual Apple-branded television).

We’ll have a full rumor round-up posted shortly before WWDC actually kicks off next month, and we’ll also liveblog the keynote from the floor of Moscone West.

Lee Hutchinson / Lee is the Senior Reviews Editor at Ars and is responsible for the product news and reviews section. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX.